The Shop Wizard: Biased???

by bratof87

"I'm your friendly guide to on-line comparison shopping! Type in what you want to buy and I will search through all the shops in the market to find you the best prices! (I search a different section of the market each time to get more results!)"

This is the famous quote made by the Shop Wizard every time you go to see him. However, I don't think the last part is quite true. I know that each time you refresh the screen after searching for something, it shows a totally different list of shops. But I think that there is a certain order in how he searches shops. I've noticed this before. Every time I put an item in MY shop, I search the Shop Wizard to see what the lowest price is, and I usually put my price around that.

Then, after I've priced the item in my shop, I go to the Shop Wizard and search for the item again, to make sure mine is there. Well, this is what I see: Prices higher than mine, with my name not there. "Yay, it must have sold already!" I think to myself. I go to my till, and find that it hasn't sold! Then I go back to the Shop Wizard, and search again, but it says the same thing. I try refreshing. Then, I see a list of shops selling the item at prices way lower than mine. Then, I scroll down, and the prices get higher than mine, but still my shop is nowhere to be found! I refresh one more time, and there I am.

This has happened many times. I think that the Shop Wizard is prone to searching one area before the others. This is probably good for the shopper, trying to find the lowest price. But bad for the people, say, that would come in the second refresh cycle. Their prices are way lower than on the first refresh cycle, so they get less for the item, not to mention the fact that their items sell slower because a lot of people find what they're looking for on the first refresh cycle, and have no need to refresh the screen to see the other people.

Most of the time, I get so frustrated that it's not selling (who would refresh the Shop Wizard three times for one item?), that I just take it out of the shop and put it up for auction, which brings a much lower profit for me. Why does the Shop Wizard do this? Does he just favour one group of people over another? I can't answer that, but I know someone out there can. Just keep this in mind the next time you're at the Shop Wizard looking for the lowest-priced item, sometimes it takes a little refreshing.